


Red

by BuckyCapRox



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Experiments, Food Issues, Gen, M/M, Nausea, Needles, Nightmares, PTSD, Torture, Violence, austrian prison camp, post azzano, sleep issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 17:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10313237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyCapRox/pseuds/BuckyCapRox
Summary: Disoriented from his time in captivity, this is the story of Bucky's journey to come to terms with Steve's post-serum body, and his own ordeal in the Austrian prison camp."Next to him, stands a man that says he is Steve Rogers. Instead of being reassured, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes feels hollow and alone."





	

Slick muddy roads suck at his boots, slow him. Barnes stumbles, but picks himself up, keeps going. The walk from the prison camp is long. Miles and miles of dirt road through thick forest and steep mountainsides. It gives him time to think, time to recover. Steve hovers at his elbow, watching, ready. Barnes hears Steve, but is blind to anything but moving his own feet, keeping his legs in motion. It’s easier if he doesn’t look. Doesn’t see this stranger with Steve’s voice. Steve’s eyes, nose, lips are all the same, but they look all wrong. Even Steve’s voice comes from the wrong place. Barnes only flinches for a second when Steve leans close and whispers into his ear, asks how he’s holding up. Steve would have to stand on a chair to do that.

He feels like he is lost. Turned around in a deep woods searching for something recognizable. Surrounded by trees, he plows on. Soon, everything looks the same. Every tree is the one that will lead him home. He is disoriented and forsaken. Barnes looks around at all of the men that once seemed so familiar. Soldiers that would follow him to certain death. Next to him, stands a man that says he is Steve Rogers. Instead of being reassured, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes feels hollow and alone.

A new dawn rises, and after an eternity of staring at his own ragged muddy boots, they reach friendly forces. Tents and jeeps sit in disorganized rows. They are safe, or as safe as they can be in the middle of a war. People stream from the tents. Friendly faces cheer, and smile. Women are in the crowd, flowing hair and pink lips. Barnes tugs his torn sweater straight before giving up. Glancing over, he looks around and finds Steve only a step away. This is Steve’s moment. He has saved over a hundred men, become the hero he was meant to be. The people of this camp need to recognize that, and Barnes yells “Let’s hear it for Captain America!” That’s Steve now, Captain America. People cheer. Everyone comes to look. 

More women emerge from tents. The unit is surrounded and they begin taking the wounded away. Barnes watches them lift grown men. Relief makes him lightheaded, and he steadies himself. He hesitates, he doesn’t feel wounded. He is whole. There is no gunshot wound or shrapnel to be removed. 

He has healed during the walk. The march through tough terrain drained other men. Left their legs weak and feet blistered. Barnes was weak at the beginning of the trek, but now has recovered. Revitalized by fresh air and forward motion. He is the phoenix. Burned to ash by blue flames, now something stronger is in it’s place.

Steve whispers to a nurse that his friend needs to be looked at. Looking up, Barnes watches them come towards him with sad smiles. The nurse tries to usher Barnes back to a tent with a big red cross painted on the top. He refuses. “Sleep, I just need some sleep.” he hears himself say. 

Steve orders him to be taken to the hospital tent. Steve always was a bossy fucker.

Inside the tent, a thin man with wire glasses looks him over. After a few seconds, he sends Barnes away with a scowl. They have real wounds to treat. Men missing limbs, eyes, some bleeding out their last moments of life, far from home in this muddy tents. The thin man has no time for malingerers.

Barnes stumbles from the tent blinking into the gray sunshine. Unsure where he needs to go, the Captain with Steve’s voice appears. A big hand reaches out. The firm grip takes him by the arm, steers him towards a mess tent. Strong hands take the tray from his trembling fingers and carry a double ration to a table in the corner. Starving, he stares at the food, unable to make sense of it. He makes a few attempts to push some into his mouth. When the fork tumbles from numb fingers the third time, strong arms ease him up from his seat. They lead him someplace safe to rest. 

Sleep comes before he even hit’s the cot. Dreams follow immediately. Dreams of needles dripping with a glowing blue liquid that light up his veins like fire. The straps are bolted. He knows he is not meant to leave this place alive. He just hopes the blue fire kills him quickly. 

He heard the last guy, screaming and begging to die. His name was Private Edwin Corwin. Barnes was Corwin’s witness. Heard the man recite his name rank and serial number until he broke and screamed. They never asked Corwin a single question.

It felt like Corwin screamed for an eternity. He didn’t. It took fifteen rosaries. Barnes knows how to count the Hail Mary’s off on his fingers. Ten in each set, then an Our Father. Five sets make a whole rosary. Sometimes he lost track when the Nazis came in for him. The needles made it hard to keep focused. 

Nazi’s in white lab coats watched Corwin slowly die. Unassuming faces took notes, writing down what was happening, while the poor guy screamed and screamed. That was the moment when Barnes realized he would die in this room. This was the end, and Corwin gave the example. They would get nothing more from Barnes than they had gotten from Corwin. No begging, no pleading. Name, rank and serial number till the end.

Barnes lives it again in his dream. Sees himself screaming, crying, knowing he was burning up from the inside. He wakes frozen and sweat soaked in a creaky canvas cot. He barely makes it outside before his stomach turns itself inside out. A big hand touches his shoulder. The Captain with Steve’s face rubs slow circles between his shoulder blades. He used to do that for Steve. It doesn’t help. It just makes him gag again at the feel of those huge hands with Steve’s long fingers. 

Eventually, his stomach stops. He stays on his hands and knees in the mud until he’s tugged up by his armpit. Shaky legs wobble back to the cot. Gentle hands tug the hem of his soaked sweater and he makes such a panicked noise it startles them both. The Captain brings him a blanket instead. Wrapped tight, Barnes tries not to sleep, but can’t keep his eyes open. The dreams follow. 

Needles and buckles descend. He is strapped, trapped, dying. A Captain wearing a helmet with a big A, slips into the room, looks down at him with Steve’s eyes, and nose and lips. The Captain reaches up under his helmet. Instead of unbuckling the chinstrap, he grabs his own chin, pulls Steve’s face off and everything is red. 

Barnes thrashes, and when he wakes he freezes. Above him, holding his shoulders is the Captain with Steve’s eyes and nose and lips. There is fear in the Steve’s eyes. Barnes can’t breathe, panic takes him. He just shakes, clutching at strong wrists, while the Captain keeps telling him to breathe. He tries, but he can’t. The air won’t come, and the world is going gray.

Distantly, he hears Steve yell for help.

A woman approaches with a needle, and he tries to escape but there isn’t enough air. Rolling away, Barnes slips from the cot when the Captain leads the woman in. Weakly, he crawls, and the Captain with Steve’s hands holds him down in the dirt. Lets them put the needle in his veins.

He slowly wakes again in a different tent. The Captain is sitting in a folding chair next to him, sketching with those strong hands that look like Steve’s. His huge bulk is folded over the small sketchbook, and a stub of a pencil almost disappears behind big fingers. The canvas cot creaks, and the Captain smiles when he looks over. Offers to get something to eat. 

The food makes him nauseous, but he swallows anyways. Chokes down a bowl of soft brown mush. Weary eyes watch each other over the bowl. No one knows what to say. So they say nothing. 

He can smell himself, and knows he stinks. Smells of smoke, sweat and fear. Fear has it’s own smell. Before, when he was a kid, he thought sweat was sweat. Now, he knows the difference. Understands the phrase, ‘you could smell the fear on him.’ He needs to shower. Aches to get away from the stench. Finally he says as much. The Captain again jumps into action. 

The Captain leads him to the shower tent, offers a neatly folded pile of clothes. Stripping, Barnes finally sees what’s left of his uniform. They are more holes than cloth. He leaves the tattered rags in a pile on the floor. They disappear while he washes, only his belt and boots remain. The showers are empty at this odd hour. A long wooden bench with just his clean clothes and towel. It’s quiet. The only sound is the drip of showers, and his own breathing.

A jeep drives past the tent, engine loud and close. It startles him. Barnes washes quickly, and tries to dress before the Captain returns. Scrambling into his clothes while the showers are empty, he doesn’t look himself over. Afraid of the marks and bruises he will see. His belt is on it’s last hole. It still feels loose. He swims in the uniform. It reminds him of wearing his fathers clothes. The thought of his family makes his knees buckle, and he sits grabbing at the bench on the way down. The borrowed pants bunch around his waist. 

He wants to go back and lie down, but isn’t sure where. Should he go to the Captains tent? Or, back with his own unit? Where has his unit gone? Wandering, he finds the Captains tent first. Lifting the heavy flap, he creeps inside. The Captain hasn’t returned. Barnes slides onto the cot, trying not to sleep. His body aches, and his mind can’t focus. He rummages through the gear, finds a bayonet and slips it under the pillow.

Lying on his stomach, hand clutching the hilt, he slides into an uneasy sleep. A noise rouses him, and he springs up, bayonet clutched and ready to lunge. They won’t take him a second time. Not alive.

It is the Captain, and he is fast. The Captain ducks away, then moves in, cooing like he is soothing a child. He tries to take the knife. He keeps repeating a name “Easy Bucky. Easy, Bucky. It’s okay Buck, you’re safe.”

No one here calls him Bucky. Here he is Sergeant, Sergeant Barnes, or to friends just Barnes. Sometimes Dum Dum calls him Jimmy. 

Steve calls him Bucky, but Steve is safe in Brooklyn, not in this hell of mud, rain and soggy tents. “Don’t…” he hears himself say. 

“Don’t.” Don’t call me that, he thinks. Then he feels the Captain snatch the bayonet from his clumsy shaking fingers. 

The Captain throws it to the side, then pulls him in to a hug. Holding him, yet not holding his arms down. Rubbing softly at his back and cooing in that soft voice of Steve’s. Bucky closes his eyes and smells Steve on him, under the smell of army soap, and gunpowder. Through his tears and his clogged nose, he smells Steve. Bucky clings back and takes a shuddering breath. Bucky Barnes holds Steve and weeps.


End file.
